Hulk Annual #1
A documentary crew gets more than they bargained for, and there’s a preview of next month’s Incredible Hulk #1, in Hulk Annual #1, by writers David Pepose and Phillip Kennedy Johnson, artists Caio Majado and Travel Foreman, colorists Edgar Delgado and Matthew Wilson, and letterer Cory Petit. Annuals aren’t always a must-read, but this one shows why when they’re done right, they’re amazing.
The main story is a found footage horror story, as a documentary team visits Viridian, New Mexico, where Hulk was created by the gamma bomb test. They talk to the townsfolk and others involved in the project, learning about the gamma ghosts and how people have been disappearing lately. They investigate the Los Diablos facility and are attacked by a massive gamma monster. As they escape, Hulk turns up to fight the creature. Soon the crew and the Hulk are pulled underground, where Mole Man and the Moloids attack, revealing the effects that gamma radiation has had. Hulk fights the Moloids, and the crew escapes, but the director is killed. The story ends at his funeral, where the rest of the crew thinks they spotted Bruce Banner. Later at the facility, the owner talks on the phone about how they have to clean up the mess when he’s approached by three people. They talk lovingly about the monster, and end up killing him and revealing that they’re looking for Hulk.
Cates and Ottley’s Hulk seemingly failed because readers wanted one thing from a Hulk story after The Immortal Hulk - a dark mixture of sci-fi, superheroes, psychological storytelling, and horror. Hulk didn’t have any of that, and fans hated it. Hulk Annual #1 goes all in on the horror. Pepose is a rising star at Marvel, and anyone who’s read his prior works for the company - Savage Avengers, Fantastic Four, and his various shorts in anthology books - knows that this is the guy to go to for familiar stories told in smart ways. That’s this story in a nutshell.
When done right, found footage horror is great, and this book follows that. Viridian is a broken town full of ghosts, and the twist with Mole Man and the Moloids is fun for Marvel fans who miss them. Hulk is constantly treated like a force of nature, coming out of nowhere and saving the day while being as scary as possible. Pepose uses the book’s central conceit in the best way and makes it entertaining and engaging. Johnson’s couple of pages at the end lay out some tantalizing mysteries for where his run is going, and it also looks like it’s going to go hard on the horror.
Majado’s art is a little cartoony and shouldn’t work as well as it does for this type of story. The linework and detail are wonderful, and his stylized approach does an amazing, especially with the actual found footage portions of the story. Majado does a great job of capturing the way found footage film works in a movie, which definitely helps the book along, with Delgado’s color art really making it sing. Foreman and Wilson’s pages are dark and unsettling, which is exactly what they need to be.
Hulk Annual #1 brings the horror wonderfully. Pepose, Majado, Delgado, and Petit drop an excellent found footage horror story that works so well because of Marvel additions like the Hulk and the Mole Man. Anyone who isn’t already excited for Johnson’s upcoming run will definitely be after this issue’s ending teaser. This is a Hulk comic that will appeal to anyone.
